On this morning, Monday, February 4, 2019, as I stood with the Southern Cross in hand, two young black men would make a U-turn, park their car, and come to where I stood. As they approached me, one would shout out: "Mr. Edgerton, good morning sir! Can we ask you a couple of questions?" As they extended their hands, my reply was "yes."

"From what we have read, you have crossed the Edmund Petis Bridge in Selma several times, including the time you made your historic march to Texas. What do you think about the annual march that took place yesterday in Selma, and do you think that you offended black folks when you crossed the bridge wearing a Confederate uniform while carrying that flag," he asked while pointing to the Southern Cross?

"Young men," I would reply; "All those folks come every year because it was an historical act originating to protest the fact that black folks were being denied the right to vote. However, there was a time in history right after the War for Southern Independence when the Southern white man and his loyal black male subjects who went off to war with him don in this uniform, fighting under this banner, were denied the right to vote."

It was a time when the former slave was going over to the so called Freedman's Bureau with brown paper bags to get their vote. They didn't even know what a vote was. "Just put your mark on the paper here," they were told by Yankees and Southern scalawags.

They put into office carpetbaggers, and thugs who continued to ravage the Southern coffers. They even put the war criminal, Ulysses S. Grant, into the White House. And after 12 years of carnage that left most of the South bankrupt, the Yankees made a deal to remove their embargo of Southern ports and told the Southern white man...."You'se better go and get your government back from them niggers. They are a joke!"

Now let's move forward to yesterday, and the cause of the vote. You got black men who are social predators. Hilary Clinton on the microphone talking like she cares about black people having the vote. Yes, so that they will vote for her. And the black Yankee scalawag, Cory Booker, acting out the same. Neither could care less for Southern black folks. And, let us not forget poor old "give away the country" Bernie Sanders.

The black folks felt real good about their raised testosterone on this day. My only hope is that they don't come away with the dupe of reconstruction. They were warned by the Pole Bearers Association, the Knights Monumental, and Rev. Mack Lee on where to put their loyalties.

Next question. "Mr. HK, you always reference General Order #200 issued by President Lincoln. I believe it was a total warfare order to wage war against the Southern civilians. Was there a similar order issued by President Davis when General Lee went North?"

"I'm glad you asked me that question," was my reply. "While President Davis did not issue such an order, when the Honorable General Robert E. Lee in 1862, at the beginning of his Maryland campaign, headed North, he issued his famous General Order #73.

He told his men that while the Union soldiers might set Southern farms and homes ablaze, the Confederate Army would not wage war on civilians.

"I, your Commanding General, consider that no greater disgrace could befall the Army than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the unarmed defenseless, and the wanton destruction of private property that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. It must be remembered that we make war only on armed men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without offending against Him to whom vengeance belongeth, without whose favor and support our efforts must all prove in vain. There would be no resistance to Grant and Sherman as they continued their sacrilege against the people of the South."

They would both give me a hug, and a word of thanks and encouragement to continue my work. I would furl my flag as the morning was becoming bitter cold. God bless you!